Off of My Chest
by Hannah Rubix
Summary: I do not own Degrassi or anything involved. Please Rate & Review! She needed to get it off of her chest, to talk to him, the man who helped her, about everything...


Telling Mr. Simpson had been something that she would always regret, or at least she thought so. Telling him had been a spur of the moment mistake. She had been thinking that since she got home. But maybe he could help her where no one else could. Maybe he could help it all just go away. He was older, stronger, smarter, just all around bigger person than anyone else who knew. Maybe he could make everything go away; he could do for her what no one else did. Peter and Manny, they comforted her. They made her smile again; they made her feel a little bit better. But Mr. Simpson… well, maybe he could make the pain and the hurt go away. She felt like she might actually have a chance in talking to him about it without pausing, or stuttering, or running away.

She should've known it wouldn't have been possible. Since then, she had run away from everything that had the potential of being a disaster. The thing was, she couldn't deal much longer with being alone like this. If she told Manny, if she told Peter they would freak out and she would have to stop. But Mr. Simpson, he would understand. He would want her to tell each excruciating bit of what happened to her, to get it all off her chest. She didn't know how she was expected to deal with that sort of pain, reliving the same moments that caused her to try and kill herself. She decided not to tell Manny and Peter that Mr. Simpson knew, they would ask why she could tell him and talk to him but not the counselor or her parents.

How was she supposed to describe something even she didn't understand? She couldn't tell her parents, they would freak out and put her in a hospital. Maybe an institute, or in one of those support groups for rape victims that were always on T.V. She wanted her life to go back to normal, she wanted to forget, not relive the same moments over and over again or be paraded around then hidden like some sort of broken, damaged freak. And Ms. Sauve, well, she would sigh and say everything was going to be alright and they would have to talk daily or something like that. Ms. Sauve would tell her parents, Ms. Sauve would ask her to talk about it again and again, would ask how she felt about it would ask her to tell the police. She couldn't do that; she would be paraded around on television as a special case on CTV News, or any kind of news show, she would be shown as no one's poor thing.

But she did have Manny, and Peter, for that she was grateful. Without either of them, she probably would've killed herself. They were her lifelines, her only links to living a normal life again. They made her giggle and smile on her worst days, though sometimes she didn't feel the smile was big enough, or that it showed in her eyes. Manny was the first to know, the one who knew it all. Telling her had been hard, but not as hard as finding out Peter knew. Manny reacted, she cried for her friend and she helped her. She let her keep it a secret, she let her heal slowly. Peter, he was the person she looked forward to seeing whenever. When he held her in his arms, everything felt right, at peace. When she cried on his shoulder and he murmured soothing words, she felt like she only needed him and Manny to survive. She dreamed of the kisses they ad, and wondered when she would be able to kiss him with as much passion as she did on the night of the snowboarding trip.

Her medication, her prescription was something she had to hide from everyone at home. It wasn't easy, with Claire always hanging around and stuff, but she managed to take the pills. She told Claire that they were none of her business, that she was acting worse than mom, and Claire eventually stopped asking. She couldn't think of a etter excuse than that. Thank god, then, that Claire didn't tell her parents about the pills. Whenever she was alone, she would pick up the bottle and squint at the words. Chlamydia. She had Chlamydia, an STD. The sort of thing pimps, and whores got from sleeping around. The sort of thing rich men and women get if they sleep with the hoes. She had an STD! She couldn't have an STD, she was the one who had taken a vow of abstinence, she who denounced people who had premarital sex, could no longer kiss her boyfriend. She had to take pills; she had to recover from Chlamydia as well as a suicide attempt and rape. What had she done to deserve this all?

She walked down the hall of Degrassi, long before school was scheduled to start. She couldn't deal with being in her structured, ordered house much longer. She needed to stop faking a smile and pretending nothing was wrong with her. _Of course there was something wrong! _She felt like screaming. _I was raped! I was touched and handled and prodded and…raped! I tried to kill myself, I slit my wrist! I have CHLAMIDIA! An STD! So yes, there was something wrong with me! _She couldn't say those things, so all she did was smile and laugh and try and act like a normal person. But she could say those things to Mr. Simpson; there was something liberating about telling someone you barely knew yet knew he wouldn't tell anyone.

"Mr. Simpson?" She asked her voice barely above a whisper as she looked in the Media Studies lab. "Mr. Simpson?" She felt a sharp pinch of disappointment go through her and turned to go, only to promptly bump into the man she had been looking for. "Darcy?" He said, voicing her surprise. She nodded weakly as he gestured to go into his classroom. "Thanks," she muttered as he pulled out a chair for her. She watched him set his coffee down on his desk and then take a seat himself. "I have to say," he began, "I wasn't expecting to see you here. You haven't talked to me in days, and all of a sudden you come in earlier than Ms. H." She nodded again dimly, nervously biting her lip. "I need someone to talk to, someone to talk to about everything." He looked confused for a second, but then nodded.

"You can tell me Darcy. I won't tell anyone." "Swear?" She asked, her voice sounding choked yet squeaky. "I promise," he agreed, looking down bashfully. "I-I have Chlamydia. I have Chlamydia because I was raped. I have to take pills to help it go away, but I can't kiss my boyfriend, I can barely do anything. I tried to kill myself because I have an STD that I should never have gotten. I have a disease that prostitutes get! I took a vow of abstinence, this wasn't supposed to happen!" She started to cry, to sob, her eyes trained on the ground. Mr. Simpson stared at her dumbstruck, at first not certain of how to begin. "Darcy," he muttered, not sure of how to comfort her. "Don't tell me it wasn't my fault," she said through gritted teeth. "That's what Peter and Manny tell me. That's what everyone would tell me." He nodded, unsure of how to continue. "But it isn't. You can't blame yourself for something like that. Because it wasn't your fault. So stop blaming yourself."

She nodded, mulling his words over. "Here, let's start from the beginning," Mr. Simpson urged her on lightly, his blue eyes silently comforting her brown ones. "Well I was on the snowboarding trip and we were at this party…" She continued talking, almost afraid of the dull monotone tone her voice had taken on. "And then I cut my arm. Again and again to make it all go away. I wanted it to stop, and it did for awhile," she finally finished, tears once again streaming down her cheeks. "Darcy," he said softly again after a moment. They talked for awhile longer before the bell rang, and to which he said, "You better go wash up. I don't think you want red eyes for class," he smiled softly. She smiled back at him, the first real smile in awhile and walked out of the classroom. _I'm never going back in there,_ she promised herself. But she knew she would, she would always come back to the man who helped her through everything.


End file.
